This recording offers a rare and compelling opportunity to hear Shostakovich's Violin Sonata alongside it's orchestral reimagining for violin and orchestra, both performed by the same soloist. In his arrangement, Krzysztof Meyer achieves an admirable equilibrium between individual creative insight and a profound stylistic affinity with his distinguished predecessor. Magdalena Rezler's interpretation is equally persuasive: her refined, unsentimental playing responds with striking sensitivity to the work's cool austerity and inward intensity. Devoid of overt pathos or programmatic gesture, the music nevertheless proves deeply affecting, captivating the listener through it's wealth of motifs and it's distinctive, unconventional design. UPC: 5902547021379Label: Dux Recording Prod.Release Date: 7.3.26Format: CD
Following the critical and public success of Mahler's Symphony No. 9, Philipp von Steinaecker and the Mahler Academy Orchestra continue their recording of Mahler's symphonies on period instruments with the Fifth Symphony. For this recording, the new Breitkopf & Hartel Urtext edition was used, which includes the composer's numerous corrections. The Mahler Academy Orchestra is part of the Gustav Mahler Academy in Bolzano, founded by Claudio Abbado. It brings together young professional musicians and experienced instrumentalists from Europe's leading orchestras. Under the artistic direction of Philipp von Steinaecker and with an ensemble of instruments carefully replicating that of the Vienna Philharmonic around 1900, they return to the roots of Mahler-era performance practice and shed new light on these masterpieces. The Gustav Mahler Academy's originalklang project is a co-production of the Busoni-Mahler Foundation in Bolzano and the Euregio Kulturzentrum Gustav Mahler Toblach Foundation. It is held under the patronage of Marina Mahler, the composer and Alma Mahler's granddaughter, for whom the famous Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony was written after her meeting with Gustav in 1901. UPC: 3701624512579Label: AlphaRelease Date: 8.28.26Format: CD
Brouhaha: Shaped by Fire is a recording and performance project, combining music with anthropology to highlight our connections to our nature and origins. From noisy social gatherings around fires 800,000 years ago to virtual meetings over Zoom today, we humans have created and solved an amazing array of problems. Even as we shape the world in unprecedented ways, we remain an integral part of nature, intertwined with it's rhythms and cycles. Project founder and violinist Maiani da Silva has commissioned six stylistically eclectic composers to write for solo violin based on what intrigues them about our human nature and our place in the ecosystem. In addition, Maiani and the composers have collaborated with world-renowned scientists to gain insights on their chosen theme. What results is an imaginative collection of works that both transcends stylistic labels and embraces intellectual inquiry, while highlighting an important duality: "our ability to work with or against our environment, [which] has been with us from the beginning" (Ian Gottlieb, composer of Shaped by Fire). The drive to express and understand are both deeply human. Brouhaha combines two cultural pillars-art and science-to further ask: What separates and also connects us to the delicate web of nature, our environment, other species, and one another? UPC: 053479704405Label: Sono LuminusRelease Date: 7.3.26Format: CD
Active as a composer since the mid-1960s, Daniel Bortz is widely regarded today as one of the most important composers in Swedish musical history. His music has always been characterised by it's simplicity and precision, which highlight the power of his emotionally charged messages.The three works presented here share a common thread of a personal kind: the collaboration with violinist and violist Malin Broman. She has been a direct source of inspiration for all three works; First as a member of the Kungsbacka Piano Trio, later as artistic director of the string orchestra Musica Vitae, and finally as soloist in Double Concerto for One. In her various roles, she has functioned both as an interpreter and a catalyst.About Double Concerto for One, Broman said: 'An incredibly beautiful and dramatic work. Daniel's music is close to song; it feels as though you are singing when you play.' The concerto is followed by Sinfonia 14, written for string orchestra alone. This large-scale, emotionally intense work features volcanic outbursts alongside moments of stillness. The Piano Trio concludes the program with a powerful, driving opening, a deeply emotional slow middle movement, and a finale of irresistible energy. UPC: 7318599926339Label: BisRelease Date: 8.14.26Format: CD
Sebastian Fagerlund is among Finland's most celebrated contemporary composers, crafting works of vivid narrative and emotional depth across orchestral, operatic, and chamber genres. This recording features four works for various instrumental combinations that demonstrate Fagerlund's skill in linking his compositions through strong spiritual and stylistic connections.Beneath for string orchestra occupies a space between concerto and ensemble piece. The solo violin - a "first among equals" - emerges from and merges with the orchestra, tracing a journey from rising chord sequences through energetic passages to quiet resolution. Remain, a piano trio completed the day Russia invaded Ukraine, weaves quotations from Ravel, Bach, and Brahms into three emotionally charged movements, dedicated to the people of Ukraine. Materie, a solo violin work written for the Kuopio Violin Competition, balances technical brilliance with expressive nuance, unfolding in two powerful waves between contemplation and intensity. Finale Stilla for violin and piano moves from introspective exploration through energetic climaxes to a hauntingly quiet, mysterious conclusion.Intertwined with all four works is violinist and conductor Malin Broman, who appears both as a soloist and part of the Kungsbacka Piano Trio, while also conducting the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra. UPC: 7318599926827Label: BisRelease Date: 7.17.26Format: CD
A quartet of German Baroque masters at their most daring and outlandish, exploring the harmonic quirks of mean-tone temperament on the organ.Manuel Tomadin has assembled an impressive library of Baroque-era albums on Brilliant Classics, including critically acclaimed surveys of Bach and comprehensive documents of the surviving output of lesser-known names such as Christian Erbach and Vincent Lubeck. 'A very attractively conceived and well-executed Bach organ recital disc,' noted Fanfare of Manuel Tomadin's diverse recital (95786): 'All recital discs should be this thoughtfully conceived and well done; cordially recommended.'In the same vein, this new recording leads the listener through both unfamiliar and well-known names and works, drawing out the original meaning of the term Baroque as 'the broken pearl' - something strange and exquisite. At a time before the 'even-tempered' system of tuning homogenised the spaces between different intervals - some of them being narrower or wider than others in what is known as 'mean-tone' temperament - composers such as Buxtehude might exploit those idiosyncrasies to produce harmonies which were deliberately awkward or dissonant. Manuel Tomadin has chosen the Praeludium in E BuxWV141, the Praeludium in F sharp minor BuxWV146 and a chorale prelude, Nun bitten wir den heiligen Geist BuxWV208, to illustrate this point. The most unfamiliar name here is Johann Heinrich Buttstett (1666-1727) - Capellmeister in the central-German town of Erfurt - who defended conservative theories of musical evolution as a writer and teacher, but also produced works which sound quite radical for their time, such as an extensive Praeludium and Canzona in D minor.JS Bach is represented here by a pair of organ preludes and fugues (BWV534 in F minor and BEV547 in C major) from his Weimar period - relatively early in his career, but no less experimental for that. The search for harmonic extremes was continued by the most radically inventive of his sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel, and Manuel Tomadin demonstrates this continuity with the chorale prelude 'Ich ruf zu dir'. A fascinating and unique collection, performed on the authentic and historically significant Hinsz organ of 1738 at the Broederkerk in the Dutch town of Kampen. UPC: 5063758977081Label: Brilliant ClassicsRelease Date: 5.15.26Format: CD
The six suites for solo cello by Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 10071012) occupy a singular position within the instrumental canon. At once pedagogical, architectural, and profoundly spiritual, they explore the full polyphonic and rhetorical potential of a single melodic instrument. Their transmission history - preserved only in copies, without an autograph manuscript - already points to a degree of textual openness that has shaped their performance tradition for over two centuries. In this recording, violist Marc Sabbah approaches the cycle not as a transcription in the narrow sense, but as an idiomatic recontextualization. Performing the suites on the viola involves both subtle transpositions and carefully considered adjustments of voice-leading, guided by historical awareness and organological logic. UPC: 4262353970997Label: Prospero ClassicalRelease Date: 8.21.26Format: CD
Shortly after the end of the Thirty Years' War, the Protestant Friedenskirche (Church of Peace) was erected in the Silesian town of Schweidnitz (Swidnica). It is for the most natural of reasons that Marcin Swiatkiewicz and Arte dei Suonatori chose this remarkable building as the recording venue for the present production: Johann Gottlieb Janitsch, composer of the four works heard here, was born in the town when the magnificent half-timbered structure was already half a century old. As Swiatkiewicz suggests, he may well have absorbed lasting impressions from it's genius loci-impressions that accompanied him throughout his later life. After receiving his first musical training there, Janitsch went on to study law in Frankfurt an der Oder. He subsequently entered the service of the Prussian minister of war and later joined the court of Crown Prince Frederick in Rheinsberg. There, he was permitted to present regular concerts with his own ensemble for a civic audience-an innovative step whose success was surely due in no small measure to the refined galant and empfindsam style that characterizes the music heard here. UPC: 761203577224Label: Cpo RecordsRelease Date: 7.17.26Format: CD
TYRANNIDE was conceived from the desire to explore the theme of cante jondo as a universalexpressive archetype, not confined to the Spanish tradition but deeply rooted in human nature.It's primordial character - often expressed through the insistence of the semitone and microtonalinflections - becomes a symbol of the human condition, forced to confront suffering, death,and their inexorable musical reflection. A tyranny, indeed: that of a lament that does not belongto a single people or era, but which runs through the history of music, re-emerging in the formof appoggiaturas, suspended tensions and melodic lines filled with longing.Cante jondo, originally connected with Andalusian flamenco, thus becomes in the programmeof this recording a universal musical principle, capable of manifesting itself even in languagesfar removed from the Spanish tradition.The programme includes two works never previously recorded: Cantar de mio Cid by the Frenchcomposer Jean-Dominique Krynen and the Concerto Trois Graphiques by Maurice Ohana init's original arrangement for guitar and piano. Around these two central works unfolds a musicaljourney that places cante jondo in dialogue with different historical and stylistic contexts, revealingit's surprising expressive continuity. UPC: 8011570373366Label: StradivariusRelease Date: 7.17.26Format: CD
Freedom is a deeply atmospheric ambient harp album, exploring the instrument's natural resonance and spacious textures. It blends acoustic purity with subtle electronics, creating soundscapes of stillness, openness, and release. The album reflects on themes of inner peace, letting go, and the search for personal and artistic authenticity. Margaret Hermant, known from Echo Collective, brings her unique sensitivity for tone, layering, and emotion into a solo context. UPC: 885470045566Label: Neue MeisterRelease Date: 5.1.26Format: CD
Louise Farrenc won the admiration of her contemporaries as one of the most respected pianists, composers and pedagogues in 19th-century Paris. She was acclaimed as a performer of Beethoven's music, and her graceful Melodie in A flat major was included in an 1846 anthology of works by an array of composers inspired by the music of Beethoven. Farrenc's Impromptu in B minor appeared in another publication, Vogt's Musical Album of Autographs, alongside compositions by 62 other musicians including Berlioz, Gounod and Liszt. The Fugues were never published in Farrenc's lifetime and are heard here in a world premiere recording. '[Stratigou] has a full mastery of Farrenc's romantic style and a technique to match' (American Record Guide on Volume 3, GP942). UPC: 747313996612Label: Grand PianoRelease Date: 8.14.26Format: CD
Under Italian skies, the young Handel chiselled the human soul into music, providing Roman palaces with secular cantatas of incandescent virtuosity. This theatre of passions explores the thousand faces of love: from the torments of the dizzying Il delirio amoroso, to the lightness of Sans y penser, through to the chains of Un'alma innamorata and the lamentations of Crudel tiranno amor.Soprano Marie Lys lends her exquisite voice to the heroines of the "dear Saxon". Under the baton of Gaetan Jarry, the Orchestre de l'Opera Royal revives this baroque ardour with supreme elegance. UPC: 3760385430805Label: Chateau VersaillesRelease Date: 6.19.26Format: CD
The violin concertos by Max Bruch and Johannes Brahms are among the most significant works in the violin concerto repertoire. They are regarded as highly virtuosic and place great demands on the soloists.They were composed in the 19th century and remain an integral part of the concert repertoire to this day. They showcase different facets of Romanticism: Bruch's work is melodic and emotive, whereas Brahms' concerto is more monumental and symphonic in scope. UPC: 881488260120Label: Hanssler ClassicRelease Date: 6.19.26Format: CD
Strange Loops presents clarinettist Mark Van de Wiel with colleagues from the Philharmonia Orchestra in three works spanning over two centuries of chamber music. The album centres on the first recording of Anna Clyne's Strange Loops, written in 2020 and exploring repeating and transforming musical patterns. It is paired with Ruth Gipps's Rhapsody, a single-movement work highlighting the clarinet's lyrical and colouristic qualities, and Carl Maria von Weber's virtuosic Clarinet Quintet, composed for Heinrich Baermann. Recorded at Garsington Studios in 2024, the programme reflects van de Wiel's longstanding commitment to both contemporary and established clarinet repertoire. UPC: 635212100820Label: Signum ClassicsRelease Date: 8.7.26Format: CD
The music of Douglas Gordon Weiland - born, like Elgar, in Worcestershire, in 1954 - is one of the better-kept secrets of British musical life: very little of his substantial catalogue of orchestral, chamber and choral works has been recorded. This first volume in a projected series reveals a composer with an individual musical language, an angular lyricism informed by echoes of Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Frank Martin, it's quieter moments having something of the autumn elegance of late Brahms and it's more propulsive passages the energy and rough humour of Nielsen and Robert Simpson. Weiland was himself a professional violinist for some years, moreover, and he writes for the instrument with deep understanding. UPC: 5060113448064Label: ToccataRelease Date: 8.7.26Format: CD
Franz Schubert's 'Die schone Mullerin' receives a deeply personal and strikingly intimate new interpretation in this recording by tenor Markus Miesenberger and guitarist Christian Haimel. Based on Wilhelm Muller's timeless poems, the cycle follows the emotional journey of a young miller's apprentice consumed by love, longing, jealousy and despair. Rather than presenting another traditional version of this beloved masterpiece, the artists return to the sound world of Schubert's Vienna through the use of a gut-strung Biedermeier guitar, revealing the songs with extraordinary transparency, fragility and emotional immediacy. In this setting, the famous cycle becomes what Miesenberger calls 'an authentic reflection of the soul of a broken man,' where voice and guitar move together with breathtaking lightness between hope and heartbreak.An essential part of this album's unique atmosphere is the remarkable recording environment itself: in sound engineer and producer Bert van der Wolf's celebrated High Street Studio in Heerewaarden, the Netherlands. Housed in a church renowned for it's natural acoustics, profound silence and immersive sound quality, the studio offered the perfect space to 'open new spaces' within Schubert's music. Combined with Van der Wolf's visionary engineering and the warmth of historical instrumentation, the recording creates a vivid new sonic perspective - intimate yet modern, pure yet expansive - allowing listeners to experience 'Die schone Mullerin' with a sense of immediacy and emotional depth rarely heard before. UPC: 608917200744Label: Challenge ClassicsRelease Date: 8.21.26Format: CD
The fourth installment of Rendez-vous with Martha Argerich brings new fascinating recordings from the international Festival Martha Argerich in Hamburg, showcasing a superb lineup of soloists among which Lily, Sascha and Mischa Maisky, Edgar Moreau, Rosanne Philippens, Akane Sakai, Michael Volle and Sergio Tiempo. Particularly noteworthy are the highlights of a Chopin evening showcasing some of the most remarkable laureates of the Chopin Competition (Warsaw).This box set is a triumphant celebration of Martha Argerich's incomparable artistry and of the remarkable circle of musicians she is collaborating with. UPC: 5414706107225Label: Avanti ClassicRelease Date: 8.21.26Format: CD
At Nimbus there was a dynamic change in 1974 when the entire operation moved from Birmingham to Monmouth and there built a small LP factory. The first releases came out in 1977, among them Martin's 1973 recording of Rachmaninoff's Corelli Variations and Moments musicaux, Op. 16. Then another very long silence, until 1978/79 when Martin was invited back to complete the outstanding pieces of Mendelssohn. In 1980 he delivered this recital of Busoni pieces. Happily, the relationship between Nimbus and Martin survived silences and early disappointments. The long-awaited Mendelssohn project was finally issued on six CDs in 1988. By that time Martin had become one of the most regular visitors to the studio, as the large discography included here will testify. c Adrian Farmer UPC: 0710357712425Label: Nimbus RecordsRelease Date: 7.3.26Format: CD
With Seelenfieden, tenor Martin Platz, the lautten compagney Berlin, and their artistic director Wolfgang Katschner present an impressive recording of 17th-century sacred music. The program combines vocal and instrumental works by Johann Philipp Krieger, Heinrich Schutz, Andreas Hammerschmidt, Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Rosenmuller, and Johann Theile - composers who sought musical forms of expression for comfort, trust, and inner reflection during a time of profound social, political, and religious upheaval. The album focuses on psalm settings and sacred concertos whose texts touch on fundamental existential questions: fear and distress, lamentation and supplication, but also confidence, trust in God, and hope. Martin Platz, a member of the ensemble at the Nuremberg State Theater, interprets these sacred texts with extraordinary clarity and depth. His tenor voice combines a natural, effortless tone with precise articulation and a fine sense of musical rhetoric. The words always retain their weight; emotions are not displayed, but developed organically from the text. The result is an interpretation that is both emotionally immediate and stylistically reflective. The lautten compagney Berlin accompanies and comments on the stylistically confident vocal performance with the tonal transparency and stylistic sovereignty for which the ensemble is internationally renowned. The instrumental sound remains agile, colorful, and breathing, the continuo sensitively nuanced, the lines clearly contoured. Under Wolfgang Katschner's direction, a dialogical musical performance unfolds in which words and sound interpenetrate and deepen each other. UPC: 4262353971031Label: Prospero ClassicalRelease Date: 7.17.26Format: CD
Now recognised as one of the pioneers of microtonal music and performed throughout the world, Ivan Wyschnegradsky nevertheless composed pieces for solo piano, an instrument he particularly loved, throughout his life. This recording is unique: it brings together the composer's complete works for solo piano, known as 'normal' piano. Most of these pieces, previously unpublished, are being released for the first time.The programme offers a journey backwards in time, from his mature years to his early compositions: from the etude sur le carre magique sonore, Op. 40, to the preludes of his youth written in Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) in 1916, shortly before he left Russia for good to settle in Paris, where he lived until 1979.The pianist Martine Joste, who knew the composer well, premiered many of his works in his presence. Ivan Wyschnegradsky particularly appreciated her dynamic and sensitive playing. In 1983, she founded the Ivan Wyschnegradsky Association with Claude Ballif to raise awareness of this major figure of the 20th century. This disc sheds light on a lesser-known aspect of the composer's personality and highlights his creative journey.The disc, co-produced with the Ivan Wyschnegradsky Association, with the support of the Francis and Mica Salabert Foundation, is released on the Shiiin label, accompanied by a 33-page booklet published in French and English. UPC: 3760180730162Label: ShiiinRelease Date: 6.19.26Format: CD
July 2026, Divine Art presents Set Two for Piano from visionary composer Eric Craven, the latest in a series of releases showcasing his 'non-prescriptive' method of composition. This unique method features different levels of notation allowing the performer varying degrees of freedom to manipulate choices around a set core. The composer states that his hope is "to reward any pianist with even modest ability with immediate success" (Pieces for Pianists Vol 1 & 2) in creating something beautiful and expressive while also providing a challenge to more accomplished pianists to explore new territory. Irish pianist Mary Dullea is Eric Craven's collaborator on all these recordings and in Set Two for Piano she brings her long experience of realising Eric's music to her wonderfully instinctive performance. This new collection offers 12 hugely enjoyable pieces that are more expansive than the previous SET, each plainly numbered without named titles. They reference a range of different styles, from toccata-like study to jaunty waltz, often with a backbone of jazz, and all varying from low-, middle- to high order notation, the levels of non-prescription with which Craven presents the score. Low-order refers to music that appears with pitch and rhythm plus bar-lines; high-order is only pitches; and middle-order somewhere in between. There are no other details given such as tempo, time-signatures, dynamics, articulation, character, or duration. "... there is a day when the recording must be made with that version of the piece committed to a presence in the world for others to hear! Essentially I am pushed to make decisions about the performances at every moment; one might say that this is part of the spontaneity of the act of performance anyway but what is particular to this is that, apart from pitches and rhythms... I aways have the choice to do something else. So, the journey from first receiving a score to defining one interpretation is a combination of experimentation and control." American Record Guide has previously said of the collaboration between Eric Craven and Mary Dullea: "the result of this artistic input from these two musicians is of true artistic alchemy". "Much of Set for Piano is abrasively wantonly tonal - abrasive in the sense that Craven's tonality is literal and daringly untreated; triads shocking in their nakedness... He cuts across stylistic allegiances, those same old same old allegiances that box so many composers in." Philip Clark, Gramophone. Manchester-born Eric Craven has left little musical footprint. He has composed since his teenage years but has rarely sought to introduce his music to a wider audience through performance or publication. The original SET was the first of his 'non-prescriptive' compositions to be recorded after Craven was persuaded by leading and eminent pianists to make his work available. This was followed by Entangled States, a set of forty-eight short pieces and two volumes of Pieces for Pianists - a collection intended to present more immediately accessible scores to a wider audience of pianists. Also released on Divine Art were his highly acclaimed Piano Sonatas 7,8 and 9, also with Mary Dullea. Mary Dullea enjoys a very busy career as a soloist and chamber musician and regularly performs and broadcasts internationally. Her exceptional discography demonstrates her support and championing of new music, and her pianism, musicality and remarkable virtuosity make her an ideal interpreter. She is currently Director of Performance at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she is also a Professor in Music. She has collaborated with Eric Craven for many years, with a number of releases on Divine Art and Metier. UPC: 809730713927Label: MetierRelease Date: 7.10.26Format: CD
Pianist Mathieu Gaudet presents the final instalment of his Complete Schubert Sonatas and Major Piano Works recording series. This final volume, The Testament, showcases the very last Sonata by Schubert in B flat major D. 960, a work with a unique sound environment, at once lush but modest, passionate but patient, opening a door to a world of extreme sensitivity. Also on this album is the Sonata in E minor D. 566, written by a romantic 20 year-old man, full of fun ideas and strokes of genius. UPC: 5400439009578Label: AnalektaRelease Date: 4.24.26Format: CD
The voice of baritone Matteo Mencarelli - accompanied by Filippo Farinelli on the piano - magnificently interprets the chamber music anthology presented in this release: a journey through Italian lieder repertoire spanning the transition from the 19th to the 20th century. The overview of the featured composers (including a world premiere recording of works by Francesco Morlacchi) traces an intriguing path in which the use of poetic texts by both ancient and contemporary authors defines the thread running through the CD. From the literary sources employed by the composers of the Italian Historical 20th century - ranging from Dante Alighieri to Gabriele D'Annunzio, via 19th century German poetry and unique figures such as the Neapolitan poetess Laura Beatrice Mancini-Oliva - spring musical masterpieces in which the composers seek and find emancipation from the dominance of 19th-century theatrical melodrama, thereby realigning the genre of vocal chamber music with the European lied tradition. UPC: 8007194108521Label: Tactus RecordsRelease Date: 8.7.26Format: CD
In this fifth volume of the complete organ works of Johann Pachelbel, Matthew Owens continues his revelatory exploration of a composer who stood at the crossroads of German musical traditions. Recorded on the characterful historic Metzler organ of Trinity College, Cambridge, this programme illuminates Pachelbel's synthesis of northern virtuosity and southern lyricism - from the cascading brilliance of the toccatas and the poised contrapuntal craft of the fugues, to the devotional intimacy of the chorale preludes and Magnificat Fugues. Owens's performances bring a rare clarity and expressive warmth to music that bridges liturgical purpose and concert artistry. With it's elegant blend of scholarship, colour, and vitality, this latest instalment in the acclaimed series reaffirms Pachelbel as one of the most eloquent voices of seventeenth-century organ literature. UPC: 5060262794173Label: Resonus ClassicsRelease Date: 8.21.26Format: CD
IBS Classical presents a new monographic release dedicated to Roberto Sierra, the Grammy-nominated and Latin Grammy-winning Puerto Rican composer whose music is regularly performed by leading orchestras and ensembles worldwide. This album features Piano Sonatas Nos. 13 and 14 alongside the Transcendental Etudes (after a reading of Liszt), performed by American pianist Matthew Bengtson, a long-standing artistic collaborator of Sierra and one of today's most compelling interpreters of his piano works. Sonata No. 13 offers a bold "fragmented sonata," a mosaic-like structure that reimagines Beethoven's legacy through a distinctly contemporary lens. Sonata No. 14, inspired by the Moonlight Sonata, explores musical memory as a sonic specter, where fragments appear, dissolve, and transform. The Transcendental Etudes pay homage to Liszt while remaining unmistakably Sierra: virtuosic, rhythmically vibrant, infused with Afro-Caribbean energy, and rich in harmonic color and pedal resonance. Critically acclaimed as a "musician's pianist," Matthew Bengtson enjoys an international career as soloist, chamber musician, scholar, and educator. Widely recognized for his interpretations of Scriabin and Szymanowski, he has performed throughout Europe and the United States, including appearances at Carnegie Hall. A dedicated advocate of contemporary music, he has premiered numerous works and maintains a particularly close artistic partnership with Roberto Sierra. Bengtson is Associate Professor of Piano Literature at the University of Michigan and a Steinway Artist. UPC: 8436597701198Label: Ibs ClassicalRelease Date: 6.5.26Format: CD
The renowned trumpeter Matthias Hofs performed and then recorded the concertos by Fazil Say and Wolf Kerschek during his artist residency with the Munchner Rundfunkorchester.? Both concertos were originally written for Matthias Hofs?. Fazil Say is one of the most important and successful contemporary pianist and composers whose works continue to reach a wide audience?. Wolf Kerschek is a Hamburg composer, arranger, conductor and jazz musician as well as a professor of jazz theory, composition and film music. His new concerto "The four elements" is a world premiere recording on this album. UPC: 885470041353Label: Berlin ClassicsRelease Date: 5.22.26Format: CD
This new recording by pianist Matthieu Idmtal shines a fresh light on the piano sonatas of Joseph Haydn, revealing a composer of boundless imagination, wit, warmth and emotional depth. Far from the often predictable image of Classical elegance, these works unfold as vibrant musical conversations filled with surprise, humour, tenderness and dramatic intensity. Especially in the hands of Idmtal who is a refined piano poet! Drawn to Haydn's music during a deeply personal and reflective period, he discovered in these sonatas a source of comfort and renewal - 'a balm for the soul, an antidote to melancholy.' Through four carefully chosen sonatas, he invites listeners into Haydn's endlessly inventive world.Recorded at the outstanding Westvest90 studio in Schiedam, The Netherlands - renowned for it's exceptional acoustics and warm, natural sound - this album captures both the intimacy and theatrical energy of Haydn's music with remarkable clarity and depth. Idmtal's sensitive and deeply personal interpretations bring new life to these masterpieces, from the sparkling wit of the late sonatas to the darker, near-Beethovenian intensity of the Sonata in B minor. The result is a recording that not only celebrates Haydn's genius, but also reaffirms the timeless joy, humanity and emotional richness at the heart of his music. UPC: 608917200799Label: Challenge ClassicsRelease Date: 8.28.26Format: CD
According to his first biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Bach possessed an extraordinary ability to combine organ stops in a wholly unusual manner, astonishing the organists and organ builders of his time. However, very few accounts survive of how he actually made these timbral choices. A valuable source of information is the Harmonische Seelenlust by Georg Friedrich Kauffmann (1733-36), a large collection of chorale preludes that displays striking points of contact with the third part of the Clavier-ubung (1739) - to the point of appearing almost as a model for it - and includes registrations so original and bold as to recall the style described by Forkel.Having already distinguished himself with the award-winning Bach Mirrored (Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik), organist Maurizio Croci draws on the timbral resources of the historic Treutmann organ at Grauhof (1737) to offer us a fresh reading of Bach's masterpiece which, taking inspiration from Kauffmann's registrations, places registration at the centre of expressive interpretation and proposes a renewed listening perspective. UPC: 3760195735978Label: Arcana RecordsRelease Date: 8.14.26Format: CD
Alessandro Stradella loved taking risks of an amorous nature. These put him in danger repeatedly. He was wounded several times and they ultimately caused his premature death when he was murdered on 25 February 1682 in Genoa. This unsolved crime story inspired no fewer than six operas between 1837 and 2017, but it also cast a shadow over the Bolognese aristocrat's actual talent, who could soften just about any soul with his talent for melodies and his refined dramatic sensibility. He was not only renowned in the opera house, but also with his intimate chamber cantatas that often summarized the content of a whole life as captivating snapshots: Seneca's demise, the fall of commander Belisarius, Nero's delirious triumph in the face of Roman conflagration and the Addio of Marcus Antonius may possibly have saved Stradella - if his murderers would have listened to his music. UPC: 761203567126Label: Cpo RecordsRelease Date: 6.19.26Format: CD
For this recording, an eight-stringed liuto forte in g/415 Hz, scale length 58 cm, belonging to Michael Haaser, was used (tuned g' d' a f c G F D). The liuto forte is a further development of historical lutes, in a sense a modern lute. Due to it's special construction and the use of heavier individual strings (in contrast to the stringed strings of historical lutes), liuto forte instruments are ideally suited for performers transitioning from the guitar to the lute. UPC: 4012476566023Label: MusicaphonRelease Date: 7.17.26Format: CD
Zygmunt Noskowski, the influential Polish conductor and composer, is perhaps better remembered for his role as a teacher and mentor to later luminaries such as Karol Szymanowski and Mieczyslaw Karlowicz - and for his connection to Stanislaw Moniuszko - than for his own compositions. Yet for much of the 19th century, he was Poland's leading exponent of modern music and his works are central to the Polish tradition. After the Capriccio recordings of his Symphonies (CD C5509 and C5547) this album presents some of his string quartets and shows us again a veritable picture book of Polish romanticism. UPC: 845221055596Label: CapriccioRelease Date: 6.5.26Format: CD
For over four decades, Mogens Christensen (b. 1955) has crafted a unique musical world where the fluidity of dreams meets an aphoristic, crystalline concision. His works often draw on tangible inspirations - natural phenomena, Nordic myths, or literary echoes - guiding the listener through landscapes of intense atmospheric depth. From the 'friendly apparitions' of 'Nordic Summer Ghosts' to the subterranean rivers of the monumental 'Flumina mortis', this release showcases a composer who perfectly balances Arcadian poetry with a modern, functional clarity. UPC: 747313697823Label: DacapoRelease Date: 6.19.26Format: CD
Having made numerous recordings for BIS both as a clarinettist and as a conductor, Michael Collins had yet to offer us one of the masterpieces of the clarinet chamber repertoire: Johannes Brahms' Clarinet Quintet. Here he performs alongside the Escher Quartet, whose latest recording devoted to Janacek's quartets (BIS-2670) has earned critical acclaim.While the combination of clarinet and string quartet offers rich potential, Mozart's glorious clarinet quintet cast a long shadow that few composers dared to enter. Composed at the twilight of his career, Brahms's quintet is an elegiac masterpiece. It radiates aching nostalgia and a poignant sense of lost love, ultimately settling into a melancholy serenity. It's emotional directness is occasionally surprising yet never sacrifices subtlety.Max Reger modelled his own Clarinet Quintet on those by Mozart and Brahms. In this final composition before his untimely death, Reger pushes tonal limits without compromising structure. Seamlessly integrating the clarinet, he creates a beautifully balanced ensemble capable of both powerful outbursts and delicate textures. Straddling the dawn of the 20th century, Reger's remarkably rich work pays profound homage to the past. UPC: 7318599928371Label: BisRelease Date: 8.28.26Format: CD
VisionPianist Michael Schoch presents a distinguished tribute to Louis Vierne's legacy, inviting listeners into a world of elegance, introspection, and timeless beauty. With captivating musicality, Schoch unveils hiddens dimensions of Vierne, long overshadowed by his celebrated organ music. These pieces emerge here as intimate, richly coloured miniatures of late Romantic expression, presenting a composer of striking imagination and rare artistic depth.OriginsThe programme's early works already display Vierne's remarkable sensitivity to pianistic colour and atmosphere. Suite bourguignonne paints a poetic rural day in vivid tableaux, from luminous morning serenity to the shimmering stillness of "Clair de lune." These pieces reveal a composer who transforms simplicity into evocative musical storytelling.ResonanceEchoes of Claude Debussy emerge in Trois Nocturnes, where impressionistic textures and harmonic nuance shape nocturnal visions of rare beauty. Inspired by the vast interior of Saint-Ouen Abbey, the first nocturne evokes monumental grandeur, while the third captures a star-lit stillness enlivened by birdsong. Vierne's voice remains distinct-introspective, atmospheric and deeply expressive.ArtistryMichael Schoch interprets this repertoire with radiant clarity and stylistic authority, uniting virtuosity with poetic restraint. Alongside the major cycles, he brings equal care to the smaller, often posthumous works, revealing their understated charm. The historic Steinway Concert Grand Piano D (1901) "Manfred Burki" lends an authentic tonal palette, perfectly attuned to Vierne's world. UPC: 760623239262Label: MdgRelease Date: 7.17.26Format: CD
